Archive: Russian

Translator's Note:

Anatoly Gavrilov is a contemporary Russian writer of short stories. Born in Ukraine, and a graduate of the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute, Gavrilov now lives in Vladimir and works as a postman. His work was not published in the USSR until 1989. A writer of modest output, Gavrilov’s laconic style and experimental narratives have left their mark on modern Russian prose, particularly the so-called “new prose” movement. The mood of his works is pessimistic. His heroes are despondent and confounded by unexpected twists of fate. His basic theme is the futility of the little man’s existence–the writer has little faith in his heroes’ attempts to change the world. His artistic approach is one of unwavering authenticity and specificity.

Translator's Note:

…

Editor’s Foreword

As noted in the previously released Pierre Menard versions of the Alexander Blok lyric “A Girl Sang in a Church Choir,”the famous Quixote translator, having relocated to Bexley, in Greater London–the date of this move is unclear, though it was certainly after the summer of 1913, which he spent in Nimes–returned to the study of Russian, a lifelong pursuit, and, not unsurprisingly, turned his attention to the translation of some of the remarkable poetry then being published in Russia and, subsequently, the incipient USSR… (continued in post)

Translator's Note:

Gnedich (Vremya, Moscow, 2012) is a novel-in-verse about the first Russian translator of the Iliad, the romantic poet and librarian Nikolai Gnedich (1784-1833), who was also the author of the first Russian Gothic fiction. His brilliant translation, still the standard one in Russia, was both highly praised and mocked by Alexander Pushkin. Gnedich has been awarded the Anthologia prize and the Russian Prize (II category), was the finalist for the NoS and the Andrei Bely literary awards, and is currently nominated for the Bunin prize. Since Gnedich spent almost his entire life translating Homer’s epic poem, Maria Rybakova (usually a writer of prose) has chosen verse as the most appropriate stylistic means in recreating his life. To the English-speaking world, this genre of poetic biography is best exemplified by Ruth Padel’s Darwin: A Life in Poems. Gnedich consists of 12 songs (cantos). The novel depicts the lives of Gnedich and his best friend, Batyushkov, who is slowly losing his sanity, among the motifs from their poetry and the archaic imagery of the Homeric world. The space of the novel extends from St. Petersburg and Vologda to Paris and Naples, and from the boudoir of the famous actress (and Gnedich’s unrequited love) Semyonova to the Petersburg public library and the cubbyhole of Gnedich’s superstitious maidservant. The novel culminates in Batyushkov’s final breakdown in the lunatic asylum in Pirna (later a Nazi killing center) and Gnedich’s ruminations on the future tragic fate of Russia. Two excerpts of the novel have appeared on the Contemporary Russian Literature at the University of Virginia website.

Translator's Note:

This transposition of “The Nose” by Russian writer Nikolai Gogol represents the first publication of a story in this newly developed genre. It takes Gogol’s original narrative (about a man who loses his nose) and shifts it from Saint Petersburg, Russia in the 19th century to New York City in the 21st century on a systematic basis similar to translation.

In the essay accompanying his transposition, Henry Whittlesey explains some of the differences between translation, transposition, and adaptation, since transposition falls between translation and adaptation. The transposition of “The Nose” represents a purely literary transposition that retains the form and shifts the content of the original story. This essay looks into five important aspects related to a transposition of content: character, setting, consciousness, identity, and the narrator’s voice. As the content shifts from 19th-century Saint Petersburg to 21st-century New York, these five elements undergo various degrees of transfiguration, depending on the extent to which their manifestation in the original is commensurate with the given phenomenon in the present day.

Translator's Note:

This was the first English translation of Victory over the Sun, which was originally performed in 1913. A re-creation of the original 1913 production using Larissa Shmailo’s translation was held in conjunction with the exhibition The Avant-Garde in Russia, 1910-1930: New Perspectives at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (July 8 – September 28, 1980), and at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. November 20, 1980 – February 15, 1981. This translation has also been performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and at theaters and museums internationally.

Original production credits: text by Alexei Kruchenykh; prologue by Velimir Khlebnikov; music by Mikhail Matiushin; and stage and costume designs by Kazimir Malevich.

Translator's Note:

Anatoly Gavrilov’s minimalist style is marked by extreme laconism and painstaking lexical and grammatical selection, which affords his stories a measure of heightened density. He belongs to what Osip Mandelstam called a “minor line” of Russian literature–the tradition that began with Nikolai Gogol, Evgenii Boratynskii, and Fedor Sologub, and continued in the twentieth century with Daniil Kharms, Leonid Dobychin, and Evgenii Kharitonov. While attention to word selection and style unites him with such Modernist master stylists as Bruno Schulz, Isaak Babel, and Vladimir Nabokov, his poetics are certainly more comparable to Kafka and Beckett. The marginally tragic-comical distance Gavrilov establishes to his narrators/protagonists is reminiscent of Robert Walser. Here’s an excerpt from a recent review of Gavrilov’s collection by Igor’ Klekh (translated by Sasha Spektor):

“Gavrilov is a grotesque, hallucinogenic, extremely formal writer–somewhat in the tradition of French literature. The exquisite style together with the notorious atrociousness of the described subject, the absence of falsity–this is all that Gavrilov can offer to his real, potential, and hypothetical readers. The music that he, in his words, “hates,” determines the construction of his texts. Rhythm is the main structural element of Gavrilov’s prose. While the words can be chosen randomly, what’s important is their repetition, each time performed with a precise degree of difference. This dance of the simplest words, the whirlwind of dance positions hypnotizes the reader.”

Translator's Note:

…………………………………………………………….

From “On Octaves,” a critical essay by translator Ian Probstein that accompanies his translations:

…

Known for his famous definition of Acmeism as “nostalgia (or thirst) for world culture,” in the later poem of 1933 Osip Mandelstam wrote: “Do not tempt foreign tongues–attempt forgetting them, alas,/Because your teeth will never bite the glass,” which seems to deny everything he believed.

Having gone through all the circles of earthly hell and purgatory and anticipating his own arrest and perhaps death, Mandelstam, nevertheless, claims that heaven is a “lifetime home” creating thus his own pattern of “Paradiso terrestre.”

Translator's Note:

…………………………………………………..

The “Slate Ode” is one of the most esoteric poems in Mandelstam’s creativity. The poet is known for his exceptional manner of hiding allusions and destroying bridges-associations.

Omry Ronen in his profound book An Approach to Mandelstam made diachronic and synchronic analyses of “The Slate Ode” and “January 1, 1924.”(1) While restoring the bridges in these of Mandelstam’s poems written in 1923, Ronen hit the right target and even created a kind of a history of the Russian verse from Lomonosov and Derzhavin to the twentieth century on the one hand, and connected Mandelstam’s prose, essays, and poetry on the other, by thus achieving a striking and sometimes a superfluous effect as, for example, in his citations of the use of blazhen and blagosloven (blessed) in Russian poetry: since Derzhavin and especially Pushkin there was hardly a Russian poet who did not use these words.

Translator's Note:

Although there is an evident affinity between Roald Mandelstam and Silver Age poets such as Blok, Gumilev, and Osip Mandelstam (to whom he bore no relation), his poetry differs from theirs in its distinctive syncretic imagery, vision, and intonation. Moreover, he is an existential poet and, as such, continues the highest traditions of the Russian poetry from Derzhavin and Tiutchev to Gumilev and Osip Mandelstam.

Kirill Medvedev, in a review of the third posthumously published book of Mandelstam’s work, compared his poetry to the French les poètes maudits. But Mandelstam’s lack of agonism, decadence, and narcissism resist that designation. It is notable that his closest friends were underground Petersburg artists of the so-called Arefiev circle, rather than literati.

Mandelstam’s work was rediscovered by Mikhail Shemiakin, who published his poetry in the almanac Apollon-77, and K. Kuz’minskii, who published selected works in the anthology U Goluboi Laguny (At the Blue Lagoon). Kuz’minskii came to a contradictory conclusion: on the one hand, he regarded Mandelstam as peerless, but on the other hand, he claimed that the poet was a “typical representative of constructive eclecticism.”

Submissions

The Brooklyn Rail welcomes you to our web-exclusive section InTranslation, where we feature unpublished translations of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and dramatic writing. Published since April 2007, InTranslation is a venue for outstanding work in translation and a resource for translators, authors, editors, and publishers seeking to collaborate.

Guidelines

We seek exceptional unpublished English translations from all languages.Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry: Manuscripts of no longer than 20 pages (double-spaced).Plays: Manuscripts of no longer than 30 pages (in left-justified format).

Please provide short biographies for the translator(s) and original author(s), 1-2 paragraphs in length. Translators who wish to have their contact information published should provide it.

Please provide a translator's note, no more than 500 words in length. The note may include critical analysis, historical contextualization, personal anecdote, or any other details the translator considers pertinent or interesting.

Translators must have obtained permission to translate from the copyright holder of the original work, unless it is in the public domain. Please provide copyright information (the name of the copyright holder + the year of original publication) for the original work.